OECD and Pisa tests are damaging education worldwide - academics The Guardian 06 05 2014 In this letter to Dr Andreas Schleicher, director of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment, academics from around the world express deep concern about the impact of Pisa tests and call for a halt to the next round of testing "We are frankly concerned about the negative consequences of the Pisa rankings. These are some of our concerns"

PISA’s confidence in the predictive power of its assessment also comes from the past. The subjects it chose to assess–science, reading, and math—have long been believed as important for success in life all over the world. They have been the core subject matter schools teach worldwide with the belief that they are essential for living in the modern age. But will these subjects turn out to help today’s fifteen-year olds ten, twenty, or thirty years later? Are they right candidates for all people in the future, or might different individuals need different sets of skills and knowledge?

Does PISA results in reading, math, and science accurately capture the domains of expertise each individual needs for successful participation in the future society anywhere in the world?

PISA not only tries to use its test results in these subjects to predict what skills and knowledge fifteen-year olds will need to succeed in the future, it also disseminates, based on these scores, education policies and practices it believes will equip children with these skills and knowledge. It has the potential to affect the livelihood of hundreds of millions of children, hence the entire world. The consequences are serious. The stakes are so high. Therefore, we must question the quality of the PISA results before eagerly jumping to conclusions. Don’t read too much into it.

The latest PISA rankings show a decline in U.S. math scores, but experts say that focusing on successes at home may be more important.

While PISA may be a wake-up call for some, for others, like Stanford University Professor Martin Carnoy, the international comparisons are deceptive. Carnoy, who has spent more than 20 years researching international education, says the rise and fall of PISA scores typically has less to do with a country’s education system and more to do with demographic changes. He warns educators and policy makers against comparing countries with completely different populations, cultures, economies, and attitudes toward education.

“The biggest problem is presenting test scores without correcting for social class differences, both between countries and within a country over time,” said Carnoy, “One should be very careful about jumping to conclusions about what these test score comparisons mean: These tests were never meant to be a race, and we weren’t supposed to be the horses.”